Battle of “The Boxer”: Grappling with Brinkmann’s 2022 Reimagination after Accepting the Met’s 2013 Elucidation

In my previous post debunking the Metropolitan Museum’s highly speculative new exhibition—Chroma: Ancient Sculpture in Color (to Mar. 26), I intentionally omitted mention of what is arguably the most important (and most debatable) piece in the show—the “reconstructed” copy of the ancient Greek masterpiece that had most riveted me when I had the privilege of admiring the original version, which had been accorded its own focus show at the Met in 2013—the Year of Italian Culture in the U.S.

This over-lifesize bronze of a battered boxer, titled “Boxer at Rest” when shown at the Met…

…was reinvented and retitled when “Chroma” accorded its 21st century remake pride-of-place in the Met’s Leon Levy and Shelby White Court:

As I previously noted, “Chroma” jarringly intersperses, among the Met’s authentic antiquities, discordantly colorful modern “reconstructions” fabricated under the auspices of Vinzenz Brinkmann, head of the Department of Antiquity at the Liebieghaus Sculpture Collection, Frankfurt, and his wife, archeologist Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann. Particularly incongruous are the boxer’s set of spanking new boxing gloves which (as described in the object label) “are of an ancient Greek type…fitted with woolen packing.”

Below is the object label’s description of the boxer and how he had originally appeared. Given these vivid details, you can more readily appreciate the impetus behind the Brinkmann tinkering—an attempt to recreate the sculpture’s original grandeur and impact:

Here’s a close-up of the squiggles of ketchup-like “blood,” standing in for the more subtle red incisions on the original:

Unlike the “Boxer at Rest” that I had previously admired, the reconstruction now at the Met has a companion—another Brinkmann creation, based on the statue of what the Liebieghaus curator described at the press preview as “a minor king”:

Below is what Seán Hemingway, the Met’s estimable curator of Greek and Roman Art, had to say about the authentic “Boxer at Rest” and the provocative pairing of “reconstructions” in the current show. I began our conversation by blurting out a confession that I had found it hard to accept the legitimacy of the “reconstructions”:

Hemingway: I’m a bronze specialist, as you know. It was fantastic to have that piece [“Boxer at Rest”] here in our galleries [in 2013]. It’s such a masterpiece. I think there’s something about a reproduction of a masterpiece that doesn’t quite meet expectations when you’ve seen the original.

Rosenbaum: So it’s not just me.

Hemingway: No. I feel the same way. That said, I think Vincenz’s and Ulrike’s ideas about this sculpture are really interesting—the idea of bringing the two together. I think his he really pushes the envelope in terms of the possibility of reconstruction, in terms of making it more dramatic and making us think about the outer limits of what it might have been like. So it is very jarring to see it that way. But I find it provocative and thought-provoking, in a good way, although I have to say I don’t like it as much as the original—especially that piece. Somehow, it does feel…it’s different. It’s very different when you’ve experienced the original, and then you see a reproduction like that.

As you can see in my CultureGrrl Video for the my 2013 “Boxer” post, Hemingway then described the original (as distinguished from “reconstructed”) sculpture as depicting the pugilist at the moment when he is taking a breather after a “hard-won” victory, while anticipating the imminent arrival of his next opponent:

The quick turn of the boxer’s head, emphasized by drops of blood that have fallen from his face onto his right thigh and arm, seem to suggest that his next competitor is now approaching. The tension evident in the muscles of his arms and legs makes clear that he is ready to spring up and face combat again.

In Brinkmann’s interpretation, as he stated at the preview:

The famous “Boxer” statue shows a local king. And when the famous Jason team, the Argonauts, passed the Bosphorus, they asked for water and this king was challenging them in a box fight. He was used to killing all foreigners in such a boxing fight. And it’s the first time that there is an opponent—the son of Zeus—who understood how to defeat him. This is the very moment of defeating the local king by the son of Zeus.

When I asked Hemingway about the discrepancies between his previous interpretation, as detailed in the Met’s press release for its 2013 display, and Brinkmann’s dramatically different take today, the Met veteran expressed respect for his guest’s opinions, without explicitly agreeing with them:

I think that it is a very interesting and thought-provoking interpretation. Prior to Brinkmann’s new interpretation, most scholars did not associate the two bronze statues, although they were found together [emphasis added]….The clearly battered state of the Boxer with his fresh wounds is admittedly an unusual way to present and commemorate a victorious athlete. And the way he turns his head could be interpreted as I had suggested in our press release in 2013 [eyeing his next opponent] or it could be that he is in dialogue with another statue, which is Brinkmann’s idea….

Or maybe he’s glaring at the photographers who were hounding him at the 2013 press preview:

Some of this may be sorted out at the two-day symposium to be held at the Met next March, which (in the words of the Met’s press release) will “assemble an international group of scholars and including Met curators, conservators, and scientists, to discuss a wide range of subjects related to the polychromy of ancient sculpture.” Although there is no catalogue for the show, you can find details on about the exhibition and selected artworks in the online Visiting Guide.

For now, come join me at the July 5 preview, where you’ll hear Met director Max Hollein, Hemingway and Brinkmann discussing the Terme bronzes (so-called because they are ordinarily displayed in the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme in Rome) and Hemingway expounding on the Met’s analysis of the traces of color on its famous sphinx, the show’s signature work. LIke me, you may be startled by the “did he really do that?” moment, when Brinkmann physically interacts with the muscled “Terme Ruler,” who is looming over the battered boxer.

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